we ever decide one way or the other on deck lists? i'd rather print one out than write one up if we do need them.

Lars said:

No plans to collect deck lists. Folks are pretty much on their honor to have a legal deck. (I think it would be nice if the winner posted his deck here or on Mainn's site, but that's for him to decide.)

LetsGoRed said:

~But I need to keep it secret so no one can tech against me at GenCon.

Can we get updates at all? I know Bloodycelt is down there and he could call me and I could post it here, but I'm going to be at the beach half the day.

After five rounds of swiss, Infinitesquarewell and Corey (not sure of board name) are both 4-0-1. (Both using Lannister I believe)

Casey 3-1-1 (using stark I believe)

Maester LUke and Twndn are both 3-2-0. (Both using Targ I believe)

Ha, awesome! Go Squarewell, former SW players unite!

I'm too tired to say much right now other than thanks to everyone who came (and especially to the out-of-towners who made the long haul into NYC). I did post the results with House and Agenda played for each player on the Events page at www.agotny.net. If anyone spots an error, please let me know.

I got to talk to a few people on a horrible cell phone reception call - but regardless sounded like a ton of fun and competition! Congrats to everyone (except Luke...screw that guy).

~I expect the same treatment when I am there in November!

I'm in the same boat as Jason. I'm too tired to share how totally awesome this day was. But suffice it to say that it was. Other than getting up on 3.5 hours of sleep.

Host Meta - good

Venue - good

Food options - good

Meta Game - Lannister heavy

Play Mistakes - mild

Ways to Deal with Lightbringer - not enough

DC meta - dominant

Time to go to Bed - now

Compelled by the Rock dealt with my Lightbringer well enough.

Just got back home... stupid, stupid greyhound. (Beats dog with trout).

Sounds like it was pretty awesome. Would love to hear some reports, and/or some decklists. It'd be awesome to see them up on Tzumainn's too. Some new content over there to go with the renewed update of cards would be cool.

bloodycelt said:

I suppose they are just moving Lightbringer from one of your Bara characters to another one of your Bara characters, but taking control of it in the process preventing you from using it?

Yes. Which handles it.

I did 2 w 3 l... so not sure if you want to see it but here:

http://tzumainn.com/agot/decks/deck.php?current_deck_id=16388

maybe someone has some ideas as to improve it's ability to choke... which is what I intended, choke the gold, discard thier cards. Valar and then not let them back up.

My Bara summer deck was 3W - 2L, heavily refined by Lars and KPMccoy.

http://tzumainn.com/agot/decks/deck.php?current_deck_id=16430#cards

bloodycelt said:

Bloody, your deck seems unfocused, like it can't make up its mind whether it is a Winter Control deck or a Bara Speed deck. I would choose one and focus on it. If you go Winter, you should be running 3x Shadow Stalker, ditching Martial Laws and such. Of if you are going speed, ditch the Winter control aspect.

I'm curious because this was the first big, cross-meta LCG event since it came out and it has been the only active debate in the game for months:

1. Were any of the winning decks MWnK-centered decks? Were there any/many MWnK-decks there? Were there any decks/games, dedicated or not, where that card was ridiculously dominant (define "ridiculously" as you will)?

2. In preparing decks for the event, did any of the players purposefully avoid neutrals to a degree that they otherwise would not have in fear/anticipation of MWnK, either the card or the deck?

ktom said:

the DC meta neither considered MWNK in testing nor included it in any of our decks... it's not a card worth playing, way too inefficient/situational/costly/etc. in any house, we can show you much, much more efficient characters in the four cost slot who themselves tend not to make it into our decks anyway

letsgored: there is one small change that could be made to the standings you posted on agotny.net -- corey is from DC, though he's technically from VA. he also doesn't come on the forums, so no forum name

also to letsgored: thanks again jason for hosting what turned out to be a very outstanding event. you guys provided awesome prizes, kept the price down, and chose a particularly convenient and appropriate venue; i'm going to start looking for a similar place in DC. i look forward to playing with you guys again, hopefully sometime before black friday

to everyone: i'll post the deck that corey and i played (we played identical decks, card for card) when LUke and i finish stuffing ourselves with grilled munchies. it was seasonless lanni "hyperkneel", and was honed to extreme efficiency over months of testing. comments/questions will be welcome, once i get it up on tzumainn

again, outstanding seeing everyone up in NYC -- corey and i are looking forward to this gencon possibly more than we have in many, many years

The 6th place deck (record = 3-2) can be viewed here: http://tzumainn.com/agot/decks/deck.php?current_deck_id=16433

Luke also ran a variant of this deck, which took 4th (record = 3-2). I think the main (or only?) differences were that he ran 1x The Long Summer, 3x To Be a Dragon, and 3x Condemned by the Council, cutting 1x Vale Refugee, 1x Khal Drogo, and 1x Support of the Kingdom. He also ran 1x Drogon, but I can't remember what he cut for that...maybe he ran only 2x Condemned by the Council? (Note: One of my losses and both of Luke's losses were to DC meta players that took 1st and 2nd, who went undefeated and were ranked based on strength of schedule.)

The Deck This was a DC-meta collaborative effort, and we play tested the deck extensively against Lanni and Bara. After much playtesting, we found that the strategy that works best is the same other metas have came across: outlast the opponent and get the recursion--Street Waif and Dany's chambers--going. Once the Targ player has repeatable Flame-Kissed and other forms of recursion, it's difficult to stop him. The key to lasting long enough in our test games was always a very fast start. That's where the deck's low gold curve comes in. In our meta, Blockade is a common first-turn start, especially out of Lannister. Zero and 1-gold cards were meant to give the Targ deck early speed and help to recover quickly if forced to Valar on round two or three. A low gold curve has also proved strong against Bara because the Targ deck can blockade first turn to neuter (or at least mitagate) a round 1 Fury of the Stag. (Blockading has worked well in preventing Bara from playing a lot of characters with power icons on the first turn, making it easier for a well-timed Flame-Kissed/Forever Burning to prevent a Bara player from stealing a character on the first turn. Even if the Bara player gets the steal off, however, the round 1 blockade slows the game down enough that the Targ player still has a chance to recover.)

Though the Kingsmoot results look a little one-sided, it is worth mentioning that in dozens of Lanni vs. Targ test games, it was usually a 50-50 split, or perhaps 60:40 favoring Lannister. In most games, if Lanni drew into 2x Castellan before the Targ player got his recursion going, the Targ player lost. If the Targ player could get the Flame-Kissed recursion going early, however, he could muster enough character control to avoid playing Valar until round 4-5, which put him in a position to dominate the late game. Or, perhaps even more clear cut, if the Targ player had to Valar on round 2 or 3 (usually because the Lanni player had a Castellan out in addition to other kneel effects), the Targ player lost. If the Targ player could last to round 4-5 before playing Valar, the Targ player had a pretty good chance of winning.

The Tournament I played against 3 Bara players (1 Summer, 1 Winter, 1 no agenda), 1 Stark (Treaty Greyjoy), and 1 Lanni (no agenda). My deck ran very smoothly against the first two Bara players but lost to the Summer Bara deck (played by Skeletonator).

My first loss was against Corey, a very good DC/northern VA player that ran the same Lanni deck as Erick's (Finite's). I had a decent start against him but no resources. Though neither of us drew well that game, Corey had several resource locations out early and discarded the only location I drew in the first four rounds. A round 2 or 3 Wildfire Assault consequently hit me really hard (I think it killed 4 of my characters and none of his), leaving my opponent with a Castellan and two other beefy characters. That was definitely the turning point. Following my Valar on round 4 (I think), I had very little gold to recover. Corey played his second Castellan and it was pretty much over. I think it took him 2-3 rounds to win, but there wasn't much I could do.

My second loss was against Skel's Summer Bara. Bara is a bad matchup for Targ, and Skel ran a good deck. But I think what won him the game was that he dropped two bannerman on characters with renown (Renley and another guy with renown...not Robert) pretty early in the game. By rounds 3 and 4, he was claiming 4-5 power each turn even with me blocking every challenge. Though I had drawn more than half my deck, I never drew into a Dragon Thief to discard his bannerman. I'm not sure if that would have won me the game, but it definitely would have made a huge difference. (I had a Flame-Pitch Tower and attachment burn out by round 3 but couldn't target his guys with attachments. I also had a To Be a Dragon, which I used to help chump block, but it would have been much better targetting a Dragon Theif) It's probably worth mentioning that this was the only matchup against Bara that I did not play Blockade on the first turn, and that plot might have slowed things down enough to give me a better chance...but I doubt it. In the end, Skel did a great job; I really couldn't do much to stop him from winning when he did.

The NYC Meta Letsgored did a fantastic job running this event, and it was great seeing everyone. As Luke mentioned above, the venue was nice--perfect actually. FFG sent prize support and the NYC meta/Letsgored chipped in some of there/his own money for the prizes, which were really neat. Thanks again for the great weekend!

@Ktom:

None of the DC meta decks ran MWNK, and I don't think Skel's deck ran them either. In terms of avoiding neutrals, I don't think it was a big deal, but I'm not sure how other people feel. Lanni really has no need for neutrals, excepting the Ravens of course. Casey, the northern VA guy that took 3rd, may have ran a few more neutrals than my Targ deck (I'm not positive of this though), but he didn't seem to be afraid of MWNK. The neutrals I ran were basically cheap toolbox characters, and while I would have been pretty angry if Samwell were stolen, I don't think it would have been a game breaker unless it happened in the first two rounds. (The other neutral characters were all easy to kill with Targ burn...I definitely wasn't worried about someone spending 6 gold and using a two-card combo to steel my 0-cost streets.) And if I had suspected MWNK might come out--for example, if I played against someone with a lot of reinforcements--I would definitely Blockade on round 2 or 3.

Twn2dn said:

despite what we saw in testing, i no longer think it's a 60/40 due to the last minute addition of wildfire assault, which we hadn't tested at all; it's a money card against targ to the point that it probably brings the matchup closer to 2-1 or more in lanni's favor

My Targ deck is currently running 50/50 with Lanny hyper kneel, but I don't play Targ Summer, and it is a little off the beaten path in terms of construction.

finitesquarewell said:

I think Wildfire Assault is a great addition, but I disagree that Lanni will win twice as often. Ultimately, I still think it comes down to whether or not the Lanni player draws two Castellans or just one and whether the Targ player draws enough removal (character and/or location) to deal with the kneel. (If you're interested, we can play a hypothetical test game in which you start with one Castellan in hand but have none in your deck.) In any case, it might be a moot point...the GJ expansion will probably change the environment quite a bit.

ktom said:

I was running a modified version of my MwnK deck. and i wish i hadn't modified it. I was worried about lanni (and as somoenone pointed out, them not needing nuetrals) so i put more vigilant and some power grab mechinics in there. I squeezed too many themes into the deck and squeezed out too many locations (big problem). In theory this was not an unfounded worry as there were 5 lanni decks at the tournament and they took 1st and 2nd. I just didn't play against a lanni kneel deck all night (i played the one non lanni kneel deck out of the 5).

My first game against Luke i passed on a 4 card flop becuase it had 0 locations and mulligined into a 1 card flop w/ 0 locations. Started coming back and got smacked by valar (still with no locations on the board). While it wasn't MwnK that let me come back it was two steal effects in one turn that turned the game before the valar (plot and seductive). I stole gilly w/ my plot, and had i been running my bara weenie MwnK she would have been a prime target for MwnK or Sam. He might have had more but i didn't see them.

the 3 games that i got a steal with MwnK off i was 2-1[stealing varys was my favorite one] and should have been 3-0 except i braindead-edly decided to not flip power of blood the turn i was 2 power out and the only power on my characters being on Robert (so a lot), needless to say he valared. One of the games was against a winter deck and winter didn't slow me nor make it hard to pay 3 gold for a steal I also never had to make it summer.

The other game i played was against a fellow bara deck and MwnK got seductive promised away, but that wasn't what turned the game, it was a battle of outlasting mels with me losing. (we had 4 sets of power counters going that game to keep track of all the power on charaters that didn't count). I was also a little location starved then too, but it wouldn't have made a huge difference as it was the rush to milk/remove mel that the game hinged on.

I think some people did avoid nuetrals. I was very surprised to see LGR runnning treaty of the isles (i liked the concept of the deck, but not the treaty) and was salivating at only needing 10 and so focused a bit more on rush that game (though i did steal a street of steel, if was funny having two of them and it negated my 1 gold loss due to winter).

My standing tech was clogging the deck and never seemed to come up at the right time. I also took a 60 card deck and added 5 cards (two compelled by the crown's which i never used, two condemed by the council which i used but only in games i lost oddly enough, and a third bannermen) and i took out 3 locations which i think was the biggest fail ever (i didn't want a 65 card deck, but was okay with 62 - 3 locations.....~must have been high).

I would have liked to have played one of the lanni kneel decks in the tournament and seen if the standing deck was needed but it never aligned that way and after the tournament (which was 3 hours of travel, and 5 hours of tournament later) i was bushed.

Twn2nd is right that casey didn't seem worried about MwnK but i wonder what would have happened in our test game had i gotten out one more military icon on the first turn (or if he had gotten one less epic phase event in the first two turns). Stealing Jon snow in one of my wins enabled me to claim 15 power in two turns and casey did have him in his deck as well as ghost.

I think the MwnK debate is moot as we now have event cancel so if you want to run neutrals you can protect them w/out MwnK of your own (really what i didn't like about MwnK). I still think it is a very strong effect and one i will probably keep running, but it might not be dictating deck building (outside of lanni) as much now. I guess the patience young padiwan side was right, but 4 months ago i couldn't know that we would be getting a completely new neutral cancel to replace paper shield (which didn't touch MwnK).

I love going to NYC to play thrones, one of the best and friendliest metas around. It was a very plesent bonus to have the D.C. guys (though i still consider Twn2nd a New Yorker ) and Luke. One of my favorite things about this tournament was the inclusion of a lot of new faces. There were 4 people there that i had not met before and were all new to the game (I'm not sure if Corey was new). LCG really makes the game approachable and when your done the tournament makes it really easy to give advice like "I like what your trying with this deck, have you pickedup X chapter pack yet." Also one a personal pride note i'm really excited to see skeltator due so well in his first really big tournament. He went 3-2 losing to Luke (reigning joust champion) right before time expired and to Eric (all your New York bases belong to us) in the final round. Skel is one of our newbies and has been toiling away in tourney after tourney in DE and still doesn;t have access to all the cps. He picked a hosue he licked form the core set games he played and focused on them and tweaked and tweaked. LCG really benefited him for 3 reasons. 1) he could afford to focus on one house and get the cards he liked/needed easily. 2) The small cardpool meant he wasn't surprised by a lot of the cards even if we don't play them a lot down here. 3) It kept the game alive so he had a chance to decide to join us in NYC and do the best out of us DE players. I'll even forgive him for beating me with strategies i've taught him

Lars said:

Slight clarification here - the new event cancel doesn't actually do anything to MwNK itself. It can't cancel the character ability, nor can it "undo" the trigger it Responds to (playing a Reinforcement event). It's only impact on the larger situation is that it stops the Reinforcement event from entering play as a character, essentially turning the combo into a guaranteed 2-character-swing instead of a guaranteed 3-character-swing. To me, if Hand's Judgement makes MwNK and/or the dedicated MwNK deck moot, this supports the idea that the issue was never MwNK itself, but the power of the Reinforcement events.

From the response I've seen so far, though (little to no decision not to run neutrals or OOH because of fear over MwNK, even before the event cancel was available), I'm not sure I'd agree that MwNK was "doing its job before the game ever started."

posted the first/second place deck on tzumainn's site:

http://tzumainn.com/agot/decks/deck.php?current_deck_id=16435

can't remember exactly what the 60th card was (i don't have a copy with me), will find out tomorrow